


when you are close to me (i shiver)

by casualbird



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angry Pining, M/M, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Resolved Sexual Tension, Safer Sex, Trans Male Character, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, felix hates weddings so fucking much, idiots to lovers, not as much as he hates having feelings tho, power bottom felix? perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Sylvain was bedraggled, like he'd arrived after a brisk drag through the palace hedgerows, with his hair in a mess that wanted the backdrop of a lopsided pillow, bare shoulders, bruised neck. He nursed a cup of coffee, a greyed-out complexion, but.He was gorgeous, as ever, and it was maddening and tiring and not in theleastwhat Felix was supposed to be thinking about!Working in Fhirdiad after the war, Felix... has some distractions to get out of the way.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 196





	when you are close to me (i shiver)

**Author's Note:**

> okay, just want to let you know! felix is trans in this, and he hasn't had top surgery. he does get fully undressed, and attention is paid to his chest. they also do have PIV sex, but it's felix's idea, he feels totally comfortable with it, and proper precautions have been taken. i say 'breasts' but otherwise don't use feminine-coded language for him.
> 
> if this is something you're chill with reading, i hope you enjoy!

Staying in Fhirdiad, Felix continually reminded himself, was objectively better than going home. Home was--tomb-quiet, certainly, or it would be if Rodrigue's staff wouldn't follow him around like crotchety goslings, honking pomp and circumstance, observances he's expected to care about. If there wasn't a hero's welcome and a graveyard parade waiting for him all at once, which there indubitably was.

It was impossible to hear oneself think in Fhirdiad, at all these damnable functions that almost made Felix pine for the pragmatism of wartime, clean-cut and unstuffy.

Still--perhaps it was a good thing, the din of it, because the main thing that it behooved the _Duke_ to think about was what to do with the neat box of Fraldarius dust shoved into the back of a closet behind a cracked sword.

So the distraction, the highfalutin frazzle of it all--Felix bit his tongue and admitted that it was a damn sight better than it could have been.

Even if he'd had to stand at attention for hours on balconies, waiting for the B-- _Dimitri_ \--to pin kitschy little medallions to his coat, or sit at the high table and remember which tiny fork to use, or--or go to all these hideous, forsaken drippy _weddings._

The war had only been done a couple of moons, but suddenly--ugh--people Felix used to think had brains in their heads were running slipshod for the altar, desperate, starved for some dusty priestess to tell them that the Goddess cares they're in love.

Well. People Felix thought had had brains, and then Dimitri. And of course he'd come to him, with that sweet nervy puppy smile, asked him gentle to stand up for him.

_Not as Duke Fraldarius,_ he'd said, half-breathless, _but as my oldest friend._

So he rolled his eyes and did, and stood as straight as he could through the fitting for his new suit, through the rehearsal, through Dimitri's last-minute panic about _deserving._

And then at his place beside the altar, with the overgrown cathedral organ blasting out his bones, with the drone of the bishop fading from his awareness, Felix just kept standing.

He'd kept himself occupied at first by trying to divine what it was that drew a waif like Marianne Dimitri's way, and then tried to put names to all the figures cast in murals, stained glass, and then had just. Tried to think about what he was going to do the next day, once he got over the hangover he was planning on having.

He should have known he'd never get any thinking done with _Sylvain_ standing beside him. The man was impossible to tune out on a good day, what with his braggadocio, the constant louche jokes that seemed to be only for his own amusement, the assured, casual way he moved... But this? In his most opulent suit, with the top buttons deliberately undone, his hair a smarmy ruffle, the sound of him sniffling, simpering for joy?

Half of Felix's mind proposed potato-sacking him on the spot, tossing him in the dungeon so he could _just get through this eternal ceremony!_

The other half couldn't think about anything but his chemical-weapon cologne, a heady musk, fit to knock a lesser man down. He must have--must have bathed in the stuff, must have spilled it down his shirtfront, must have done it _on purpose_ for the knowledge that Felix would be there, at parade rest, just this side of too close to him for _hours._

Must have known that it would make him think of the first night back after Enbarr, when they'd sacked Garreg Mach's wine cellar, gorged on anything other than hardtack, salt meat. When Felix had skulked away to a balcony too romantic for the ricocheting way he'd felt, staticky and tightly trussed. When Sylvain had come to find him leaning against a crumbling rail, bouncing his knee, tried to cajole him back into the raucous jubilee. When after some half-remembered fumble Felix fixed Sylvain with a fanged, jittering kiss, lunged into him, felt their heartbeats on collision course. When he'd felt Sylvain's jittering hands come to rest on his bruised ribcage, the sore small of his back.

He'd pulled away, then, and bit his lip, and then scowled. Sylvain had spluttered, dragging himself back like Felix's form had its own gravity, like they were magnets with opposite poles. Had _asked._

"Figure it out yourself," Felix spat, and stalked off, and ever since then hadn't been able to figure out why.

And so the ceremony was uncomfortable. The reception was no improvement--sure, the food was decent, and the alcohol flowed--but for all of its jubilance? Nightmarish still. The jostle of exuberant bodies, the roar of laughter, conversation, the orchestra's implacable carrying-on. And--halfway through his second plate of pheasant, Mercedes had hustled up to him, holding up her billowing skirts and grinning.

"You've got to dance with me, Felix!" she'd informed him, as if it was a new law that he was the last to hear about. "It's a celebration, so you can't say no!"

_Watch me,_ he'd thought, and taken her hand anyway, letting himself be led in a bright, brisk reel, trying mightily to keep in step without treading on her hem. And it was--in its way--worth it. Mercedes grinned so widely, so beatifically, and, well, if it made her _that_ happy... The worst part was that Felix couldn't rightly be snippy about it. 

Besides, it was--diverting. The war, and before that his general apathy, had slipped him out of practice, so it was a puzzle to recall the order, the cadence of the movements, to sync them to Mercedes'. To do the whole thing backwards, since Mercedes seemed so blissfully, willfully ignorant that he'd only ever been taught to lead. It was consuming, kicking up his heart rate almost like a good spar, and--well, at least it got him thinking about something other than the rich misery of weddings, of Sylvain.

Until--the _bitch_ \--he'd tangoed for them at a charge, nearly whirling poor Annette into a footman, laughing as if there wasn't a single damn problem in the world.

"May I cut in?" he'd drawled, with that dripping, smarmy affect. Brushed back his hair, stared Felix down like some smug gleeful fox. Like he wanted to--oh, Felix didn't even know. Dance with him, the way it was perfectly acceptable for friends to do at weddings, to _exult in the occasion_ or whatever the fuck. To take him out for one song, and doubtless lead him, and--and place one hand at the slenderest part of his waist, so Felix could feel it warm even through his brocaded waistcoat. To be almost as near to him as he was that evening on the balcony, close enough to feel the lively heat of him, smell the mulled wine on his breath, that forsaken cologne...

To _see him,_ for fuck's sake, his _face,_ battered at the edges, at the corners of the eyes. That ill-healed crooked nose, the smile that with every year grew less effortless, less cocky, that despite it all still shone.

Felix froze, and slipped a step, nearly tripping on the back of his own ankle, casting a desperate mayday glare Mercedes' way.

And--and heaven help him, he'd owe that woman for the rest of her life. She smiled like an angel, sublime, and fixed herself fluid to Sylvain's front. Fell into step as if she'd tangoed since the womb, led him brisk and vivacious and gleeful away.

Felix stood dumb in the center of the dance floor, and wondered if he'd ever managed to solve a problem so elegantly in his life. If he ever would.

And then someone, some blur of petticoat and crinoline broadsided him, knocked him half to the floor, and the moment was gone, because it's always a damn fool idea to stand with one's dick hanging out in the middle of a party.

Felix gathered up his pride, crammed it all into the back of his throat, and carried on getting sensationally drunk.

He woke up as he always did after drinking like that: with regrets. Mostly the usual suspects, things like ale and mead, not drinking enough water, having never properly made amends with his father--but also. Ugh. Felix wasn't sure if it was a shock or if it was desperately, screamingly predictable; just that it was the stupidest he'd ever been in his life.

_Should have danced with Sylvain,_ he'd thought, and then sighed the way one might if one's lungs were made of granite, and then spent a solid quarter of an hour with his head between his knees.

Once he'd finished, more or less, with the business of being hungover, some secretary rapped on his door to remind him of another wretched council meeting. Less productive, certainly, in Dimitri's honeymoon absence, but things still wanted taking care of. And he'd gone, of course, out of a certain obligation, a distant love for king and country. Mostly out of... of a spiteful affection like a snake eating its own tail, as if challenging Sylvain to still be in some visiting dignitary's bed. To have finally dropped the charade of a grown, responsible man, someone able to appreciate the solemnity of fucking anything.

He was there, of course. But just because he was going to decide to do his job, that didn't mean Felix was going to--to swoon into his lap. Especially not today, when his head still throbbed, guts still squirmed, when Sylvain looked like _that._

Bedraggled, like he'd arrived after a brisk drag through the palace hedgerows, with his hair in a mess that wanted the backdrop of a lopsided pillow, bare shoulders, bruised neck. He nursed a cup of coffee, a greyed-out complexion, but.

He was gorgeous, as ever, and it was maddening and tiring and not in the _least_ what Felix was supposed to be thinking about!

Felix drummed his fingers through the meeting doldrum, scowling, chewing his lip like it was hiding information. Squirming, a little, at the sight of Sylvain even like this, even miserable, hungover, trying to cram a working knowledge of the Adrestia treaty down his throat.

Gah, it was--it was _boring,_ horseshit, all formality, couldn't the fool Imperials just roll over and accept that they'd been beaten? It wasn't as if they had any other option, so what was the point of pretending?

Well. Politics, as pointless as they were--especially when one had better things to do, like sharpening swords and ignoring letters from home and doing _some fucking thing about this ache_ \--did have some use. Probably.

So Felix sat. Sat, and propped his head up in his hands, and despite all attempts at attention stared slit-eyed at Sylvain. And, unfortunately, had thoughts and opinions about that.

Opinions like _I should have danced with you last night,_ and _I wouldn't have eaten canapés out of your hand but I'd have wanted to,_ and _you should have rushed me off and put those hands to me, you suave bastard, and maybe finished me quicker than I can do for myself so I can get on with my damn life._

Some thin, reedy, blathering old man voice, then, with the tautness of having repeated oneself: "Your Grace?"

"What?" A sniper's shot of a word, with as much venom as Felix could muster on the back foot.

"Thoughts, your Grace? On section eleven?"

And Felix fumbled, mumbled, heated over like someone had just thrown a soft-boiled egg at him, splattering it all over his chest, letting drip into his scabbard. And Felix really, truly despised soft-boiled eggs.

The meeting, once all the pissy, prissy statesmen had had enough of sitting up straight, turned out to be utterly fruitless. An absolute yawing chasm where resolution was supposed to be, a fracas, except for one thing.

Felix had made up his squirming, broiling mind about Sylvain.

Well. Made up his mind, until he'd gotten back to his room, and decided to try masturbating about it. That and avoiding him.

Which didn't work. Even though he tried for the better part of two weeks.

So he made up his squirming, broiling mind again, which posed problems of its own.

There had never been any... pragmatic use for seduction before. Not to Felix, who could get what he wanted on the point of his sword, and if he couldn't, could at least pretend not to care. But--what could be more pragmatic than this? Remove the distraction. Get it out of his system, so he could maybe run the country or something.

Well. Felix knew, with all the weight and comfort of a rock shoved up his ass, that he couldn't just be one of Sylvain's toys, the kind he's been less and less interested in anyway. Couldn't want it just once.

Wanted, instead, to get rid of this forever headache, to wake nested in with him, some idyllic little vision that he wasn't even certain where he'd gotten. To lean on Sylvain's shoulder when his old injuries played up, to bathe with him and not even fuck in the water.

Wanted, because of all of this, to maybe set the palace on fire.

Which wouldn't be productive.

He wore a groove in the floorboards of his room, pacing, shooting sparks from the ends of his fingers, shoving himself down at his writing desk only to spill ink, snap quills, growl and pace some more.

Not because it was hard, not because there was some science to it, the way he'd always suspected, some formula Sylvain would run to make all those girls line up for him, even when it was so obvious what a cad he was.

Because it was easy, and there was nothing for it but to _go._

To seek him out, find him in the stables crooning to his horse like some lover, and not think about how lovely that stupid voice was for long enough to curl talons in his scarf, drag him somewhere, get the whole humiliating business over with in time for some midnight drilling.

Well. His first mistake was sneaking up on him, padding soft through the thick rushes on the stable floor. Catching him by the wrist with cold fingers, and then--and then he was on the ground, wheezing, because Sylvain was just as much of a veteran as he was.

And Felix--really considered getting his blood up about it, hissing at him, but.

Laughed, instead, as Sylvain's face fell like a shot kite, as he scrambled to his knees, hands scrabbling to gather Felix up, to brush away the straw that clung to him.

"Shit! Oh, oh shit, I'm so--!" And then there was nothing for it, because Felix was on his feet again, fine enough, eyes narrowed like a drenched cat through his laughter. Sylvain just dissolved, clapping palms over his face.

"Don't! Sneak up on me like that! Fuck, Felix, I almost died!"

"Well, at least we'd have kept our promise," Felix sniped, though the effect was rather diminished by a snort, "since you almost fucking murdered me. You beast."

Sylvain only shrugged, flashing that smile that Felix could never decide on--was it foolish or clever? "Guilty. But you're just as bad, you know."

"Fair enough," Felix granted him, marshaling his hair back into place. Really, it was probably for the best, this little pratfall, because otherwise... well, how else would he have opened?

At least now--with a thudding ache in his back, still a little short for breath--the tension was broken.

Sylvain was good for that kind of thing, Felix thought, and then had to catch himself by the ear to keep from traipsing down that garden path, because, _really._

Staring up at him, listening to his own stinging silence--he had a job to do.

The tension must have been especially talented, because it mended itself in an instant, was back in full force.

"Uh, Felix? You alright? Did you need something?"

_Yes. Yes. There are so many stupid things that I need from you right now, you cretin, you absolute dick-for-brains buffoon._

"I've, ah." Pursed lips, face flaring. Felix shuffled his feet, feeling foolish in a way he'd thought he'd outgrown. "I've got to talk to you."

Sylvain just--nodded, in that way of his, as if there was nothing in the world to shock him. And, well, there probably wasn't. He'd seen enough, came out of it on a more even keel than most.

"Shoot," he said, leaning casual against a beam. And that was the damn problem with Sylvain, the way he was at times like this, when Felix wasn't certain whether his nonchalance was infuriating or desperately comforting.

It was easier to pretend it annoyed him, and so Felix set his jaw, lined up the edges of his teeth. "In _private."_

And for a second--just one scintillating second--Sylvain looked struck. He blinked, fluttering those too-long eyelashes, parting his unfairly pretty lips. Putting the pieces together, probably, and Felix didn't like to think that he could be so easily read, but... _heh._

Sylvain was suffering, Felix hoped, just as much as he was. Inasmuch as that was a victory; the realization only made him redder.

Still, he smoothed it over almost instantly, quirking an eyebrow, a cockeyed smile. "That _so?_ Well, my friend, I'm all yours."

Felix just nodded, clamped a clammy hand around his wrist once more. Frog-marched him across the courtyard, past any number of guards who Felix could have sworn knew exactly what he was doing.

Well--dragging Sylvain by his ear was his preferred mode of travel, so it couldn't have seemed out of the ordinary. He was just... outside his wheelhouse, and that was never good. Needed to settle down, to keep whatever cool he had left, whatever Sylvain hadn't drained from him like... some kind of unbearably desirable mosquito.

At the very least, the palace was huge, and his quarters were just shy of the top of it. A long walk, and Sylvain took the hint to shut the hell up after a moment, so Felix could focus on the asynchronous clatter of his heart against their footsteps, echoing down stately stone corridors. Could breathe.

Felix warned off his personal guards with a glare, hauled Sylvain bodily through the door, set him in a standoff across the too-plush carpet.

Sylvain gathered his bearings, far too easily for Felix's taste. (He was only jealous, his own bearings scattered around the floor like snowflakes, no hope of gathering them up before they melted.)

"Alright, Fe--" and Felix bristled not at the nickname, but at the way it struck the insides of him, strummed his sinews like lute-strings. Heated him thick and sickly, worse than the sweat gathering after their swift retreat. "What's eating you?"

There was a silence. In the knight's tales Ashe always foisted on him, there's this odd preoccupation with these sorts of pauses, and the authors called them _pregnant,_ which Felix thought was horrible.

Some part of him, faraway, half-giddy, found that for the first time it completely understood. This silence was gravid, aching, bursting with the potential for some scintillating _something--_ but it was going to hurt first.

"If you laugh at me," Felix ground out, "I'll wring your neck."

A nod, a smile as if everything was in hand. (How was Sylvain like this? How was everything always _in hand?_ Oh, Felix withered, privately, to be in hand.)

But. There wasn't anything for it now--for the too-fast lurch of Felix's blood, for the curdling of his stomach, the damnable dampening of palms, underarms, chest beneath the binding--but to go headlong into it.

"I--I think we should... go to bed."

And then--heh--everything wasn't in hand just then. Sylvain looked as if he'd just walked into his own surprise party, and everyone had jumped out, cheered, thrown confetti, and then the whole affair had been vaporized by an errant lightning bolt.

Felix wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

"Huh?" Clearly, the shock of the thunderstrike had wiped his mind completely.

"Should _fuck,_ Sylvain, and I'm--being serious." His voice ground low, a marble-mouthed mumble. Fingers twisted together, teeth clenched. The pattern of the carpeting, so long ignored, had its moment in the spotlight.

"Just a minute, though," Sylvain said, as if Felix had been rambling, on another of his diatribes. "Now? Why now? Why--?"

Felix knew the next word: _me._ And--for all the frustration of it, the incessant knee-jiggling energy--couldn't bring himself to be annoyed. Just sighed, and pursed his lips around a smile, and looked up.

There was a crease in Sylvain's brow, an eyetooth digging into his lip. The fingers of one hand played through his hair, as if he wanted to go into this brave new world as artfully disheveled as he could be.

"Leave if you want to," Felix began, a hoarse-edged olive branch. "But--if not, then--Sylvain, you're the worst fucking distraction I've ever met."

Sylvain's breath hitched, lips pursed around a faint smile. Of course he'd love to hear that.

"I can't-- _do things,_ Sylvain, I can't get anything done. And I can't stop being... I'm a coward about it, it's weird, I never went back after that night, and I wouldn't dance with you at the wedding, and still I can't... I never pay attention in meetings anymore, when you're near me, it's like all I ever do is look at you! It's--you're the biggest fucking nuisance I've ever dealt with in my life and if I didn't do something about it I'd! Ugh! Fuck!"

"Felix..." A hand on his shoulder--when had Sylvain crossed the room? It was such a light touch, the sort of casual, gentling thing Sylvain handed out like candies, but it wracked Felix, made him jump in a way that... wasn't all bad. "Heh, you really feel that way?"

Felix wanted to take his claws out at that, but... didn't. Just stared at him--not into his face, Goddess, no, but the broad line of his shoulder, where it was draped with a light autumn scarf. The thing had been an object of so much nonsense fantasy, and Felix wanted to shove his face into it, make it a conduit for the warmth, the scent of him.

None of that would have been _helpful,_ though, so he just. Sighed. "If I didn't," he tried, sounding hoarse, "would I have--have vomited all my guts at you like this?"

"Fair enough. I just--I thought--after the monastery, you'd..."

"Thought better of it?" The words tasted ashen, dust wedging itself between teeth, under his tongue.

Sylvain just nodded, slow. "Yeah, I guess. It's not--I'm not the most... reassuring person to want."

The thrust of the statement was carved deep in the sags beneath Sylvain's eyes, the fine lines etching daily deeper in his brow--it made sense, and Felix apprehended it for all that it was. Knew that, in some way, it was true, or had been a while ago.

Felix still wanted to call him an idiot.

Wanted to say something like-- _jackass, fool, brainless asshat sonofabitch._ Something productive to go with it too, something like-- "I _am_ reassured, Sylvain, because you're a nuisance, you're just--you've always been here whether I wanted your nosy ass or not, and now I--damn it all, I _do."_

The man looked--bemused, a little awed, as if he was marveling at the accuracy of a bird shitting in someone's hair--but he didn't lean away before Felix kissed him.

And yes, _yes,_ this was better. None of these words, no thank you, not any longer. Just the crush of their lips, sharp jaws slotted awkward, the graze of eager teeth. The heat of them, clacking together like magnets, chest sealing to chest, hip to abdomen, hand to hair. Sylvain's fingers caught in it, between Felix's hair tie and his scalp and he scrambled a second, huffing bemused into his mouth until he righted himself. Loosed Felix's hair, then, and dragged fingertips firm through it, warding off moons of stacked-up tension headache.

Felix stopped--stopped pressing so much, stopped trying to... oh, he wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Eat a hole through Sylvain's face, or something, that's how it seemed. This wasn't an area of experience, nor instinct, nor talent, so when Sylvain slowed, settled into a languid pace, Felix thought it best to follow.

And it felt like... if one was to ask Felix what it felt like, drag him away by the collar from the hand petting his waist, the tongue making soft, clever overtures against his lips--there'd be nothing for it. That person would be dead, ruined, yesterday's news.

So he glared, half-growling, when Sylvain drew back. Was pacified, though, by that face coming into focus--the shine on those eyes, those soft lips, the flush on his face that rivaled the burn of his hair.

"Felix," he murmured, as if it was the Goddess' name, "Felix, you're so--is this alright? What you need?"

A little huff, something that might even have been laughter. _"Yeah,_ so--so get back to it..."

And Sylvain really did laugh, gentle and breathy, as if he'd never worried once in his life.

"I bet it sounds like a load coming from me, but... we should talk about this more, you know," he said, tone listing just serious enough, though his face still beamed adoration. Laughed again at the roll of Felix's eyes. "'S okay though, later. You're really hard up now, aren't you?"

A half-laugh in return--"You could say that."

And Sylvain crooned, leaning in to kiss the spit-slick corner of his mouth, one hand traveling over the soft nape of his neck, the other slipping just below the hem of Felix's jacket, fingers sliding warm against him through his undershirt. "I'll take care of you," he sighed, breath gentle on Felix's weatherbeaten cheek.

"You're so full of shit," Felix informed him--though his voice was only as coarse as raw silk, though he leaned into Sylvain's touch, into the solidity, the warmth of him. Let the musk of that cologne suffuse him, a little lighter for just a regular day, but it filled him all the same, made him hazy. "So full of shit," he repeated, barely audible with his face in Sylvain's scarf. "Now... fuck me, or--or something."

Sylvain just--snorted a little, laid a kiss on the part of Felix's hair. "Your wish is my command," he said, shifting, guiding Felix across the carpet like this was his room, his palace, his domain. Confident, but never wavering in the tenderness of his hold on Felix's hip, his wrist, never leaning so far away that Felix couldn't hear the thrumming of his heart. Couldn't feel him incidentally as they walked, growing hard against the taut muscle of his backside.

And when they made it to the bed--Felix tensed a little, to be underneath him. It felt like losing a spar, the way whenever Sylvain beat him he'd hiss and spit, run hot with shame...

In retrospect, he thought, distantly as a deft hand unfastened his jacket, that made a lot of sense.

And then didn't think about much at all, because Sylvain's broad hands spread over his abdomen, the soft space between halves of his ribcage. Warm, he was so _warm,_ and just firm enough, gentle without coddling.

"Felix," he cooed, leaning down so Felix could feel the little gust of his breath, the impossible softness of Sylvain's hair against his cheek, running counter to the scrape of stubble on his neck. "Baby, you're so--"

"Don't call me baby." Harsh, bitten like anything else Felix ever said, but... flagging, a darling little waver in it.

Sylvain just laughed, just a little huff, just to say it was no big deal. Dragged those hands down, feeling out the edge of Felix's hipbones, comforting despite it all. "Alright, sweetheart."

"Heh. Now you're just--mm, taking the piss."

"Aw, Felix, you know me too well!" He fixed him with that grin again, that careworn smile that used to be drawn under the dictionary entry for _cad._ "Don't worry, honey, I won't do anything you don't want me to."

Felix smirked, shoved up at him, the heels of his cold hands pressing right into the fullest part of Sylvain's chest. Which was unintentional, but--with the way they gave under his palms, the appreciative little hiss out of Sylvain...

It was a second before Felix remembered what he was going to say.

"Honey?"

"Fuck. Okay. Sorry. How about 'Felix, you're so gorgeous, can I get your shirt off you?'"

A roll of the eyes. 

"Hey! I mean it! That's what I was gonna say!"

Idiot. _Fool._ Felix slid his hands around, curled fingers in Sylvain's scarf, hauled him in for another charging kiss. "Go for it," he rasped, lips just catching on the skin of Sylvain's cheek. "Don't make me wait."

And so he didn't, just pursed his lips around another kiss, shifted up to catch the hem of Felix's shirt. Shuffled it off, half-awkward--Felix had to assist a little, and it granted him an enormous satisfaction that even the great Sylvain couldn't make _everything_ sensual.

He picked the ball right back up, though, with a smile as soft as Felix had ever seen on him. He didn't have time to admire it, though, because Sylvain put it to the line of Felix's slender neck, trailed wide-mouthed kisses across his clavicle, the harsh point of his shoulder, then down, flirting with his sternum. Being careful, Felix noted, to avoid the binding at his chest. His hands bypassed it completely, thumbs rubbing soft circles in the lean hollow of his waist, and it was all so... Felix was sure there was no trick to this, but if there wasn't, how did it feel so much better than when he laid hands on himself?

He squirmed a bit, tangled his fingers in Sylvain's lapcat-soft hair. Couldn't help it. Couldn't help a little sigh when Sylvain's fingers pressed into a muscle knot, when his lips found the hollow of his throat.

And--undignified as that was, and as undignified as it would be to... well, Felix always fancied himself a person who knew when to say _fuck it._

"Fuck it," he said, and if he colored a bit, it was only because he didn't expect himself to sound so... affected. Breathy, with little cracks showing on the face of it.

Sylvain popped up, then, to meet his eye, and if Felix was any less determined to have what he wanted, he might have plumb forgotten what it was. He was-- a more romantic person might have called him a _vision,_ with his hair in a mess, his eyelids low, his lips swollen, shining wet. But Felix wasn't especially romantic, so... he just thought it, instead.

"Something wrong, b--Felix?"

"No, just--" _More,_ he'd have said, but Felix was a man of action, so he just settled shaking fingers over his chest, fumbled with his fasteners. Sylvain gaped a little, as if he'd never even apprehended the concept of tits before, and then hastened to help.

And it wasn't much help, not really, but... it felt good, to watch that face, to feel the tangling of their fingers, the brush of wrists.

Felt good to loose the thing, to take a full breath, feel himself come free. He sighed with it, and Sylvain shivered. Shifted, a little, and Felix fucking swore he felt him throb against his inner thigh.

He pressed back into it, and was rewarded with a crack of Sylvain's voice, of his face, as if just that one little touch was sublime.

"That's it, Felix, that's--ah, mm, can I touch you? I'll be gentle," he added, as if Felix hadn't been--heaven help him--craving for this.

On his tight nod, Sylvain's fingers trailed their way back up, slotting between Felix's sharp ribs. Tracing, gingerly, the outside curves of his breasts, catching the weight of them in careful palms.

Felix bit deep into his lip, stifling a noise that just came out on a whine anyway. Figured--he was so sore, was always so _tender_ there and Sylvain must have guessed because his touches were as slow, as measured as his breathing.

And Felix, who had thus far kept himself alive by knowing what to do with his hands, had no earthly idea. Couldn't fathom devoting it any sort of brainpower, so just--reached, and landed lucky, fingers slipping under the hem of Sylvain's billowing shirt, letting him marvel at the peacetime softness that tempered ironclad obliques.

"This okay?" His cheek between his teeth, Sylvain hung on it, stilled his hands until Felix murmured a breathless _yes,_ an utterly defanged _dumbass, what'd you stop for?_

And then, as if keeping the words in had pained him: "Fuck, Felix-- _Fe--_ I can't take how handsome you are, how--"

Line of thought abandoned, Sylvain ducked his head, laid warm gentle kisses over Felix's chest, where muscle gave way to scant softness, over the silvery stretch marks Felix had always hated so much. Let those hands make their way back down to his waist, fingers teasing at the tension in his abdomen. Continued with his campaign of little kisses, had just brushed slow lips over a nipple when Felix pitched into him, gasping swordspoint-sharp.

Finding pressure, friction, Sylvain cried out in turn, deep and heady, and Felix felt it in his ribs like the shaking of rafters.

"Perfect." The word stumbled from Sylvain's mouth, his body grinding down--he was hot as the afternoon they'd won the war, and so stable, and Felix couldn't help but clasp his hands to Sylvain's shoulder blades, clutch him fast.

A little laugh, then: "You happy, Fe? Tell me, tell me what you want, I'll--hah, I'll take care of you."

"I told you that line is full of shit," Felix sighed, notching his face into the crook of Sylvain's neck again, taking a deep draught of that scent that dizzied and stabilized him all at once. "And I said you should fuck me."

"Gonna need to be more specific, okay? With my hands? My mouth? Oh, Felix, I'd fucking--ugh, I'd love to--"

Felix cut him off on a sigh--but not without making _due_ note of that. "Literally," he huffed, "I--it's fine. I drink this... it's tea, it tastes like actual shit but... I'd be fine. And..." and at this his face burrowed deeper into him, as if he could just--push hard enough, come out on the other end of the mortifying ordeal of this conversation, "I want you to."

Sylvain jolted at that, as if he wasn't certain whether to stiffen or go utterly boneless. Settled for action, for guiding Felix back gentle by the shoulders, looking at him with the reverence Felix might give a holy sword. Kissed him, gaining momentum, exuberance as he went, and then pulled away, grinning.

"Shit's hard to talk about," he said, breath gone from him, "when you're being honest. Good, yes, fuck, of course I can, let me--" and he scrambled away from him just as quickly, dove into the pouch at his belt, tossing a little bottle toward the bed. Didn't even look to see if it'd landed right, just--threw himself into the next task, disrobing like someone'd poured ants down his collar. Felix couldn't help but laugh, couldn't help but wish he'd gotten to do the undressing himself. Settled for kicking off his own boots, his trousers, whipping them to the floor. Hesitated a second--but it was only sensible to get rid of his smallclothes as well.

Could sit for a second and breathe, and then lose his breath, laughing, because Sylvain was moving like a dog trying to find its way out from under a blanket. Hopping around, yanking off the long woolen socks that it was always just cold enough to wear in Faerghus.

"Bundled up," Felix said, wry.

A snort. "Get off your high horse, Fe--there!" Sylvain dropped his breeches about as quickly as it was humanly possible to do so, and then launched for the bed, catching Felix up in his arms again.

And--and Felix had probably had some barb for him, for his enthusiasm, for it all, but... the way it _felt._ Warm, solid, like being wrapped in a house. And not some overlarge, ostentatious keep, either--a cabin, stoutly built, in the mountains. A place with homespun quilts, wide hearth.

If Felix hadn't been panting for this, hadn't been dripping onto his thighs--he might never have moved again.

"Hurry up," he muttered, making a gentle mockery of kicking Sylvain in the shin. And almost regretted it, when it meant a reshuffling of position, when it meant not being held like that. More so when Sylvain had to launch a full-scale expedition to find that little bottle, but. They got it sorted out, and having Sylvain recline at his side, looming over him, tangling his free hand in his hair while oil warmed on his two fingers--it was nearly as good, when one factored in the anticipation.

Sylvain kissed him like a cartographer, surveying the near side of his face. His cheekbone, the ridge of his brow, the softening, crow-footed corner of his eye. "Alright, I'm gonna need you to spread your legs a little--that's right. Ready?"

On Felix's nod, Sylvain's fingers traveled southward, dripping over his chest, tight abdomen, slipping into his Adonis line. And then made contact, and whatever exuberance, whatever abandon Sylvain had had was gone--he stroked him slowly, first, just grazing knuckles over the little jut of Felix's cock, down just slightly past his entrance.

"That good?"

Felix could only nod again, fingers curling. Could just lie there, breath heavy, and wonder absent how in the world Sylvain's hand felt so much better than his own. The very slightest touch, too--barely more than the brush of fingertips, only the steadiest pace.

"Inside," he urged, hoarse like a man dying of thirst. "C'mon, I didn't--"

Sylvain just kissed him again, warm at his hairline. "Don't have to tell me twice," he said, and even in his reverence he sounded a touch too assured, too sultry. Felix would have to learn, before next time, how to turn the tables.

With the shake of Sylvain's finger as it slipped inside, though... it probably wouldn't be too hard.

But he'd figure it out _later,_ because... because he'd seen Sylvain's hands before, and felt them under any number of pretexts, but he'd never quite registered how _broad_ they were, not so acutely as this. And weathered, skin not yet softened from peace, and the way that fingertip dragged against a weak point...

The feeling of sinking into a hot bath had always been one and the same as breathing free, finally unfettering his muscles--but here, he was just as warm, just as relieved, but still bowstring-taut, shaking with the curious effort of lying there and feeling it.

Felix made a sound he didn't care to acknowledge the existence of, cracked and pitchy, and asked almost civilly for _more._

"Course, Fe," Sylvain murmured, and the sound rang from his chest into Felix's, like a cat's purr, and Felix couldn't bite back a whine. And then another, when Sylvain slipped him a second finger, crooning in his ear. "There you go, that what you needed?"

"More! I don't--alright, I probably, oh, _mm,_ you suave _bastard--_ I do have all night but!" And broke off, the trunk of him twisting as Sylvain's thumb came to press against his cock, "how many times do I have to tell you what I want?"

And Sylvain laughed, sending that low rumble through Felix again, and kissed his lathered brow. "Yeah, yeah. You know, if I hurt you, I'd never _ever_ hear the end of it. But 's alright, I got you, won't be long."

If he hadn't kept his word, Felix really might have throttled him, but... Bless him, he did, changing tack to careful stretching, plying Felix with slow, firm circles over his cock that had him an inch from shaking apart by the time he withdrew, wiped his hand on the corner of an errant shirt, fixed Felix with a grin.

And. Yeah. Felix probably brought that on himself.

Didn't have the time to grumble about it, though, because Sylvain was shifting him, gentle, pressing his wide warm chest full into the curve of Felix's back. "Like this?" he asked, and Felix nodded his assent before realizing that that would just give Sylvain a faceful of his hair.

He didn't seem to mind, though, just drew one broad palm down Felix's side, over the contours of his body, bone and muscle and just a little bit too much scar. Laid his lips in the curve of his shoulder as that hand lifted his thigh, eased the both of them into place until Felix could feel the bluntness of Sylvain's cock just millimeters shy of where he needed it.

It probably would have been overkill to spur him on again, so Felix just--swallowed his pride, pitched his hips back into him, sighed.

And then Sylvain was spreading him, sliding in slow, and if there was any strain at all, Felix couldn't parse it over the _sound_ Sylvain was making, heavy and heady, like... oh, he didn't know what it was like. Just that it was completely, utterly priceless.

Also priceless was the feel of Sylvain hilting himself, just this side of too much, so full that Felix squirmed to fit him, hips twitching.

"That it, Fe? That what you needed?"

Felix made a strangled sound, pitching. Some distant bone-deep thing inside of him scrabbled for something sharp to say, some barb or another that'd deflect from how dearly he'd wanted this, how it felt like the first good meal after moons of rations to be held like this, fucked like this, _taken care of_ like this! How much it was--against all odds--worth every last little thorn in the bramble bush he'd worn so long at his side.

Sylvain moved, then, just the slightest roll of hips, hand braced over Felix's taut belly. "Perfect," he murmured, not bothering to lift his lips from Felix's skin, not caring how much hair he got in his mouth, "feel so good _\--so_ good, Felix, _Fe,_ I got you, do you want more?" His hand drifted down a little at that, just catching in the hair that trailed from Felix's navel, suggesting. "Want me to jack you off?"

What Felix wanted was to get a word in edgewise. Or for Sylvain to not have _called it that,_ but... Fuck it, what Felix really wanted was--"yes, fuck, yeah that."

"Alright, heh, I'm on it." And he was, then, to his credit, barely wasting any time slotting the pads of two fingers against Felix's cock, fixing him with tight little circles that in no way matched the rhythm of their hips, that slipped even further out of sync as they went on, panting, shivering, leaning as far into each other as they could.

Felix had given up on dignity, on pride, on trying to be _quiet_ while Sylvain had him at such a fever pitch, crying out, daring any of the insignificant bastards in the world to hear. They ought to know he had this, that Sylvain was so precious eager to give it to him, that Sylvain was his.

He'd said as much, shuddering into him, between sharp breaths, frantic wide-mouthed kisses. _Yours, Fe, want to be yours,_ and a litany of other soft nonsense besides. Felix, for his part, only gasped, chest tight, fingers scrabbling at the sheets, at the soft swell of Sylvain's hips.

Well. Might have said _something,_ in the febrile fog of it, some platitude that surely he meant too much to _really_ mean, or at least to want on record. _Wanted this,_ perhaps, or _needed you,_ or _please._

Or all of it, or more--it was so hard keeping track when he could have sworn he felt Sylvain _throbbing_ in him, when he felt the dig of fingertips against his cock, the wedging of hips into his. When he was overtaken, spasming, wailing sudden and sharp and just--just finally boneless, listing into Sylvain's body like a safehouse in a storm.

And when he'd finished twitching, had found his breath, when he sighed as soft and sated as he ever remembered letting himself be--that was when Sylvain curled around him, wrapped him up, sobbed against his skin. "Fe," he'd managed, through tight throat, and then "ohh," and then he was still, and soft, and silent.

Safe.

After all of it was over, the too-busy aftermath of it--Sylvain making certain he was alright again, and cleaning them up with something that Felix had a sinking feeling was his undershirt, and reminding him to visit the privy--after all of it, they laid together. Not so close as they'd been, because they were both really too overheated for that, but. Close enough. Touching, with a gentling hand laid over Felix's thigh, his hair trailing over Sylvain's shoulder.

"What'd you think?" Sylvain asked, once he was quite done being breathless.

Felix sighed, and smiled, and shot him the least convincing glare of his existence. "Worth it," he admitted, "but you've got to promise me something."

An easy smile, loose and winning. "Shoot."

"If I'm fool enough to spend my entire life with you, please... please tell me we don't have to have a damn wedding."

**Author's Note:**

> felix: so sylvain, you really just carry sex oil around everywhere? for sex?  
> sylvain: yeah??? doesn't everyone?  
> felix: that's the horniest bullshit i ever heard  
> sylvain: hey, it came in useful!!  
> felix: fine but i still hate your guts
> 
> title from shiver shiver by walk the moon!
> 
> this fic ate my life, and even though i had an absolute blast writing it (and learned so much!) i'm so excited to be able to turn it over to you now! i really hope you liked it--if you did, why don't you let me know?
> 
> also, you can hang out with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) if you like!
> 
> thanks for reading! :^>


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